Tag Archives: Computerworld Mobile

Losing your phone is one of the most stressful predicaments of modern-day life. We’ve all been there: You pat your pocket, swiftly scan every surface in sight — then suddenly feel your heart drop at the realization that your Android device and all of its contents are no longer in your control.

There’s certainly no scenario in which losing your phone is a good thing. But with the advanced security tools now built into Android on the operating system level, finding and managing a missing device is often — well, quite manageable. And you don’t need any third-party software to do it.

Android’s native Find My Device system can precisely pinpoint any Android device — phone, tablet, even Android TV box (if you somehow manage to misplace one of those?!). It’ll show you the device’s exact location on an interactive map and give you tools to remotely ring it, lock it or wipe it entirely and send all of its data to the digital beyond.

How often do you check temps in your fridge or freezer? With the AcuRite wireless fridge/freezer thermometer you can be sure that your food is being stored at safe temperatures. It displays the refrigerator temperature, freezer temperature and the high / low temperatures recorded for each. An alarm notifies you audibly and visually when temperatures exceed your customizable presets. Especially useful in a power outage, or if you plan to store food in a cooler for an extended period of time. Right now the typical list price on AcuRite’s thermometer is discounted 65% to just $13.84. See this deal on Amazon.

A wiser person than myself once called prejudice “little more than an emotional commitment to ignorance”. One way to eliminate ignorance is to understand history, and Apple and ARKit have the potential to do that.

Making history

We’ve looked before at how beacon-based technologies can be used to augment public exhibitions – they can be used to provide access to rich and immersive resources designed to help you learn much more about the physical objects you can see.

Safely store massive amounts of photos, videos and music with this 4TB external drive from WD. It comes equipped with WD Backup software so you can automatically back up photos, videos, music and documents on your preferred schedule. And built-in 256-bit AES hardware encryption with WD Security software helps keep your content private and safe. The 4TB My Passport model is currently priced just $10 higher than its 3TB counterpart with this 31% off deal. See it now on Amazon.

Whether in the park, at the beach, at a music festival or out trekking, Solartab lets you enjoy free and endless solar power. Simply open up the Solartab to start solar charging either the internal battery or or USB devices like your phone or tablet. Thanks to Solartab’s huge internal battery, you can even charge your devices after the sun sets. The typical list price on the charger has been reduced 47% to $69. See this deal on Amazon.

I am a believer that the Device Virtualization vision will manifest fully one day, but we have a long road to travel to this end game. The related notion of Service Endpoint Agent (SEA) devices that I have written about is simply a continuation of emerging edge and fog computing trends that will ultimately drive the transformation of wireless networks into flexible, new, value-added service offering environments where said services are literally just one hop away. However, if we want to realize this vision,it will require that the edge transforms into a different type of mini-internet that behaves just a little differently than the wider internet that it connects to.

Do me a quick favor, wouldja? Read over this list of smartphone software improvements — using your best jeans-clad, adjective-abusing Apple-exec-at-a-keynote voice in your head — and tell me if it sounds like a significant upgrade.

Specifically, think about if it sounds like the sort of thing that’d result in awkwardly long applause breaks as the presenter emphatically wraps up each point:

This summer’s groundbreaking upgrade includes fresh features, performance enhancements and interface improvements to more than 40 core parts of your smartphone experience.

Some of the significant changes we’ve rolled out to every user around the world within weeks of their release:

If you already know this page exists, let it serve as a reminder. Amazon’s back to school deals page centralizes their best discounts on everything from laptops to calculators to pencils and batteries. If you still have supplies left to buy, there’s plenty of time. Grab your list, fill your cart, and start putting check marks on your list while also saving some cash. Visit Amazon’s back to school Electronics deals page here, or their main back to school deals page right here.

The “augmented human” concept has become a reality. We carry health sensors on our wrist and our Apple Watch is becoming our personal physician. These concepts are transforming the insurance industry.

Risk assessment

Life is a risky business. Insurance is the business of extracting profit through the process of underwriting such risk. And it’s changing right before our eyes.

You already pay less for insurance if you are a safe driver. In future, autonomous vehicles will extend these benefits even further with collision detection and accident prevention systems minimizing risk.